1. Towards more metropolisation ? A systematic empirical overview through the European FUAs Christian Vandermotten September 2011 Institut de Gestion de l’Environnement et d’Aménagement du Territoire Faculté des Sciences

2. The « scientific » theory Metropolisation and world cities, nodes of the networks of the globalised economy, cores of the creative and innovative economy, in a post- industrial society The « political » consequences More competition between the main cities, a fading of the cohesion policies, similar politics led by the results of benchmarking studies, more attention paid to the exogenous than to the endogenous economy, more gentrification vs. more social policies in the cities

3. What are the empirical evidences concerning metropolisation ? Are the economies of the biggest cities performing better through Europe ? Are they performing socially better (less unemployment) ?

4. The data A common delimitation, the population and the GDP for the whole set of FUAs with more than 50,000 inhab. of the EU27+Switzerland, realised for ESPON and the DATAR (more than 10 % of the active population commuting to the morphological cores) For each FUA with more than 200,000 inhab., the economic structure (manufacturing, building, trade and transports, financial services, other services), an accessibility index, indexes about the economic, the cultural and touristic, the scientific and the political position of the FUA, the unemployment level

5. The GDP data and their evolution (1995-2001- 2008) are computed by comparison to the European (EU27) average, but also towards the national averages, the national dynamics remaining a very significant reference EU27(+Switzerland) has been considered as a whole, but also in three sub-sets (Western Europe and Northern Italy ; Mediterranean Europe and Southern Italy ; Central-Eastern Europe and Eastern Germany), where the mechanisms could be quite different

7. GDP/inhab. is growing with the size of the FUAs, at least from the threshold of 200,000 inhab. This gap is spectacular in Central-Eastern Europe, mainly in favour of the capital cities The difference between smaller and bigger FUAs is not fading, and even strongly increasing in Central-Eastern Europe between 1995 and 2008... but it remains stable in Western Europe

8. FUAs with more than 1,000,000 inhab.

10. Capital cities improve or at least maintain their favourable relative position, mainly in Central-Eastern Europe,... with two big exceptions : Berlin and Wien, Among the other main cities, the better inserted in the global networks and some main ports are generally performing better than the early manufacturing cities,... but this trend towards metropolisation is weaker during the beginning of the 2000s than it was during the 90s

11. PCA all FUAs and Central- Eastern Europe GDP relative growth 2001- 2008 (with projection of GDP relative growth 1995- 2008) Relative GDP vs. national averages PC1=41 % var. PC2=15 >% var.

12. Conclusions Post-Fordist metropolisation confirms and reinforce the importance of the main cities as the nodes of the accumulation processes after their de-industrialisation during the 60s and the 70s,... however this dynamics is fading from the beginning of the XXIth Century, by comparison to the 90s (too expansive real estate ? higher wages ? lower growth of the financial sector ?) The Central-Eastern European capitals keep their comparative advantages, but they remain more the cores and the insertion nodes of their national economies than true globalised metropolises

13. Cities with a strong manufacturing (or coal- mining) past undergo generally low relative growth rates, with some significant exceptions (Bilbao, Katowice and Lodz even if they don't progress at the same rate as Warszawa BUT It doesn't mean that it could be enough for any middle-sized or even big city to undertake a « metropolisation-oriented » policy for improving its growth... and this conclusion is mainly true in Western Europe, where cities can develop many different opportunities as basis for their development, as specific niches and not forgotting endogenous economies

14. ... and more especially as more metropolisation, more economic growth or a higher relative GDP no more mean less unemployment, in particular in Western Europe